Have you ever gotten caught up in an ear worm?
That’s what I call it when a line from a story or a song gets stuck in your head and just plays over and over again until it about drives you crazy. Well, that happened to me last night. I don’t know if I would ever have gotten out of it were it not for the Dalai Lama.
But maybe I should start at the beginning. The line that had me hooked was from a song called Saints and Sinners, written by a Canadian, David Francey (I had to look him up). The line, or chain of lines went ‘And off in the distance there rang a bell. And it rang for the saints and the sinners as well. Off in the distance there rang a bell.”
Well, after a listening to that tag end of a verse that sang itself into my ear for what seemed like a year or two, I began reflecting on the message. A non-judgmental bell, that rang for everyone. Huh!
And then that other thing happened, where your seriously ADD brain is thinking about one thing and Your nervous system goes SQUIRREL, and you’re off down another road entirely.
Somehow when I thought of that non-judgmental bell, my very next thought was “I bet the Dalai Lama would love one of those.” I’ve always liked that guy and in my mind right then, I remembered a picture I had seen recently of the man they called His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with his face all full of compassion and his eyes so kind. I’ve always been intrigued by the notion of living out a life having been pronounced to be the 14 times reincarnated soul of the original Dalai Lama. I like his face; I like his thinking. He has said more than once that following the will of God, in terms of his belief system, is much simpler than we would have it. Not easy. But simple. Straightforward.
He finds that all the churches and temples and synagogues, and the rules and rituals and rites of the different faiths might be interesting, sometimes intriguing and often beautiful. And all are of value. But the only thing God really asks of us, and the reason we are actually here, is just to learn to be kind. Sound easy? Try it. Not on your neighbor or your family. But for the person who today makes you grind your teeth at night or your lip curl up in a snarl when their name is mentioned. Be kind?? Why, you’d as soon as eat a big crunchy bug! And then SQUIRREL! And there I was, off down another road, or rabbit track, again.
Fortunately, when I started looking up Buddhism and compassion together, Uncle Google informed me there were too many paths to follow and couldn’t I please be more specific. And so I came to a dead end. And as is sometimes the way of ADD, as I was climbing back down that chain of random associations, I found I was actually lonesome for my dear little ear worm, that I, in fact, really like that song, and I am looking for a good set of cover songs to maybe do another album, am I not?
So, is it possible that during all this time when I’ve been searching diligently for just the right songs, the Universe has been singing one right into my ear, just as diligently, the whole time? Is that not batty? Maybe.
Y’know, ever since I got old enough to know myself, I have joked that God talks to me all the time. And she always starts with “I SAID...”
Well, it’s maybe not a joke, folks. I think that earworm was meant for me. Some kind of woo-woo magic, you say and scoff? Nah. Just God being kind.
